JEDDAH, 1 March 2005 — Sociologists tell us that when suspicions enter a marriage, they will destroy it. Neither husband nor wife can live with each other if both suspect the other of cheating. Women have a number of interesting ways of finding out whether their husbands are cheating on them; some of them are both shocking and unbelievable.
Shaker, a 30-year-old, said he never realized his wife asked other women to phone him in order to see if he would respond to them. “I talked to them for hours and our conversations covered every single aspect of my life, even the personal ones,” Shaker said. In the end, however, Shaker’s wife feared her friend was falling for her husband so she confessed what had been going on to him.
Shaker’s wife is certainily not the only woman who tries to keep track of her mind. Many women burn the midnight oil thinking of ways to find out what their husbands and fiances are up to behind their backs.
Rania, a 29-year-old teacher, received a call from her sister who was nearly hysterical, thinking that her husband was unfaithful to her. Rania’s sister felt that her husband was surely cheating on her since he spent so much time on the phone late at night.
Rania soon thought of a way to help her sister without the sister’s husband knowing. She went to the roof of the building where her sister lives and found the phone lines from her sister’s apartment. She connected a telephone with a recorder to her sister’s phone line. She explained, “Late at night, I came back and switched the machine on with a 90-minute tape. That would be enough time to see what kind of conversation was taking place.”
When the tape was played, the women’s suspicions were confirmed. “As we expected the scum bag was talking and carrying on with the worst kind of woman,” said Rania.
Another way women keep tabs on their men is through maids. Afra, a 28-year-old nurse, said that her maid gave her daily reports on what her husband was doing before the couple got a divorce. “I knew everything he did while I wasn’t at home — who he called, who visited him, what he did: everything.” Afra now admits that what she did was also wrong. “It’s too late for regrets but I made a mistake; my husband didn’t deserve what I did.”
On the other hand, some women disapprove of spying on their husbands. Dina, a 27-year-old postgraduate student, thinks that women should believe, respect and trust the man they chose as a husband. “I think if a man wants to do something, he can do it either in front of me or behind my back.”
She believes that if she found her husband was cheating on her, she would give him the choice of her or the other woman. “My husband once brought up the matter of another marriage. He joked about seeing another girl and I made it clear to him that he was free to see someone else and marry her, providing that I got out of his life,” said Dina.
Sawsan was 18 weeks pregnant when she found out her husband was seeing another woman. She was cleaning his drawers when she discovered pictures of a young woman wearing his shirt, his sun glasses and hugging him. She put the pictures back and called her mother and brother for help.
“My mother told me to stick to my husband and not even think of a divorce, while my brother asked me to confront my husband with the pictures and have a frank conversation with him,” said Sawsan. She managed to control her temper and put on her best clothes to wait for her husband. When he arrived, she used all her feminine wiles on him and created a very special mood. Then: “I asked him what he would do if he caught me cheating and he said he would kill me. I asked if I had ever been rude to him or mistreated him and he said not. Then I produced the pictures of the other woman and reminded him of all we had shared.”
She asked him whether the other woman would take care of him as she had done. “After I reminded him of all that, I began to cry and told him if he wanted the other woman, he should get out of my life. All of a sudden, he was kissing my head, apologizing and asking for me to forgive him.”
